On Movies & Media

The new trailer for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has arrived! What do you think? I first read The Hobbit when I was 7 years old, and moved right on up to The Lord of the Rings at age 8. If you're like me, you'd love to have the thrill of discovering a world as awe-inspiring as that again. And I think we can. We just need to find a way to see Bilbo Baggins, The Shire, the dwarves, Gandalf, Mirkwood Forest, and the Lonely Mountain with new eyes.

Here's the trailer for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. But that's just the beginning. Since America will have Lincoln on the mind in the coming weeks, I encourage everyone to read the text of Abraham Lincoln's amazing Second Inaugural Address. Read it out loud. And then, well, the fun's just getting started. Check this out...

Ten years ago today, Le Fils (The Son) played at the Toronto International Film Festival, sending a second wave of rave reviews around the globe. A few months earlier, the film had inspired audiences at the Cannes Film Festival; it was nominated for the Palme d’Or, won the Ecumenical Jury prize, and lead actor Olivier Gourmet won Best Actor. I saw it in 2003, and knew immediately that I had enjoyed a film that would become a personal landmark for me in my moviegoing journeys. I was right.

According to an AV Club report, the second Star Trek movie from J.J. Abrams will be called...

This doesn’t happen often. I think I can name only five films that have driven me from the theater in my moviegoing lifetime. But these two were especially surprising, as both films had come highly recommended by prominent American film critics and by close friends in my film-enthusiast community. Bear with me, and I’ll tell you what those movies were, and why I walked out.

If you could cast a two-person movie and just watch them meander through conversations for 90 minutes, which two actors would you cast?